More info on Sino-American relations

Sino-American relations: Map

Wikipedia article:

Map showing all locations mentioned on Wikipedia article:

Sino-American or
U.S.-China relations refers to international relations between the
United States of
America (USA) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). Most analysts have characterized
present Sino-American relations as complex and multi-faceted, with
the United States and the People's Republic of China being neither
allies nor enemies. Generally, the U.S. government and military
establishment do not regard the Chinese as an adversary, but as a
competitor in some areas and a partner in others. It is also
acknowledged that the nature of Sino-American relations will be a
major factor in determining the fate of the world in the 21st
century.

The United States has the world's largest economy while China's
economy is the second largest. China has the world's largest
population while the United States' population is the third
largest. The two countries are the two largest consumers of motor
vehicles and oil. They are the two largest emitters of greenhouse
gases and thus have a disproportionate impact on climate
change.

While there are some irritants in Sino-American relations, there
are also many stabilizing factors. The People's Republic of China
and the United States are major trade partners and have common
interests in the prevention and suppression of terrorism and in preventing nuclear proliferation. China is also
the U.S.'s biggest foreign creditor. China's challenges and
difficulties are also mainly internal, and therefore there is a
desire on the part of the PRC to maintain stable relations with the
United States. The Sino-American relationship has been described by
top leaders and academics as the world's most important bilateral
relationship of the 21st century.

Images and conceptions

Much of the complexity of Sino-American relations comes from the
images that the two have of themselves and of the other.

Within China, there is a love-hate relationship with the United
States. On one hand, American consumerism and culture are seen as stylish. At
the same time, there is resentment of American intervention into
other nations' affairs, combined with a fear of American power. The
Chinese are often perplexed at the stated motives of American foreign
policy and tend to conclude that these goals (such as promoting
freedom and democracy) are an
insincere cover for darker motives, namely to make China weak and
divided.

Americans tend to see China as a far off and distant land. The
United States often believes that as part of its mission to advance
freedom and democracy, it has the duty to advance the cause of
human rights in China. Over the past 150 years, Americans have also
tended to see the Chinese people as oppressed and abused by either
the Japanese in World War II and more recently by the Communist Party of China.
Americans do not generally accept the notion that many Chinese
support the PRC government, because of its authoritarian nature, and are critical of
the non-democratic government's ability to make decisions to
benefit the Chinese people. Americans tend to believe that any
authoritarian government is necessarily intolerableâ€”a viewpoint not
shared by most Chinese. As a result, Americans tend to be baffled
by the suggestion that most Chinese people find American criticism
of human rights "abuses" to be hypocritical and meddlesome.

Many in the United States, such as adherents of neoconservatism and the Blue Team, view the PRC as having the potential to
threaten American interests and allies.

History

Old China Trade

An example of an early-1800s
Chinese-made lap desk for exportâ€”lap desks such as these were
particularly popular amongst the American merchants themselves, who
used them to write letters or conduct business during their lengthy
voyages at sea.

First
contact between the post-revolutionary Americans and the Chinese
occurred during the voyage of the trader ship Empress of
China, which arrived at Canton in
1784. Given the Chinese demand for raw goods as well as the
American demand for anything remotely exotic, the voyage of the
Empress was a financial windfall for its owners and thus began the
lucrative Sino-American relationship known as the Old China Trade.

The result
was the considerable exportation of specie,
ginseng, and furs to
China, not to mention the much larger influx of teas, cottons, silks, lacquerware,
porcelain, and furniture to the United States. The merchants, who served as middlemen
between the Chinese and American consumers, became fabulously
wealthy from this trade, eventually giving rise to America's first
generation of millionaires. In addition, many Chinese artisans
began to notice the American desire for exotic wares and adjusted
their practice accordingly, manufacturing goods made specifically
for export. These export wares often sported American or European
motifs in order to fully capitalize on the consumer
demographic.

Opium Wars

The end of
the First Opium War in 1842 led to
the Anglo-Chinese
Treaty of Nanking, which forced
open many Chinese ports to foreign trade. To this point,
Sino-American relations had been conducted solely through trade;
however, this new pact between the British and Chinese severely
threatened further American business in the region. The John Tyler administration would thus secure the
1844 Treaty of Wangxia, which not
only put American trade on par with the British but also secured
Americans the right of extraterritoriality. This treaty
effectively ended the era of the Old China Trade, giving the United
States as many trading privileges as other foreign powers.

Chinese Exclusion Act

The first page of the Chinese
Exclusion Act of 1882

During the California Gold Rush
and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, large
numbers of Chinese emigrated to the US, spurring animosity by
American citizens. After being forcibly driven from the mines,
most Chinese settled in China Towns of
cities such as San
Francisco, and took up
low end wage labor such as restaurant and laundry work. With
the post Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese
animosity became politicized by labor leader Dennis Kearney and his Workingman's Party as well as by the
Governor of California,
John Bigler, both of whom blamed Chinese
"coolies" for depressed wage levels. In the
first significant restriction on free immigration in U.S. history,
the United States Congress
passed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882,
following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty of 1868. Those revisions
allowed the U.S. to suspend
immigration, and
Congress subsequently acted quickly to implement the suspension of
Chinese
immigration and exclude Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers
and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for ten
years under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. The ban
lasted for over 60 years.

The Chinese government was forced to indemnify the victims and make
many additional concessions. Subsequent reforms implemented after the
crisis of 1900 laid, at least in part, the end of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the modern Chinese Republic.The United States
played a secondary but significant role in suppressing the Boxer
Rebellion, largely due to the presence of U.S. ships and troops
deployed in the Philippines since the U.S conquest of the Spanish American and Philippine-American War. In
the United States military,
the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition.

Open Door Policy

In the
late 19th century the major world powers, France, the
United
Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, and
Russia, began
carving out spheres of influence amongst themselves in China, then
under the Qing
Dynasty. The United States, not having a sphere of
their own, wanted this to stop. Therefore, in 1899, U.S.Secretary of StateJohn Hay sent diplomatic notes to all of these
powers, asking them to guarantee the territorial and administrative
integrity of China, as well as to not interfere with the free use
of treaty ports within their respective
spheres of influence. The major powers evaded responding, saying
they could not commit to anything until all the other powers had
assented first, but Hay took this as acceptance of his proposal,
which came to be known as the Open Door
Policy.

The Open Door Policy, while generally respected internationally,
did suffer serious setbacks. The first one occurred with Russian
encroachment in Manchuria in the late
1890s. Protested by the U.S., it would lead to a Russian war with Japan in 1904.
Japan
then presented a further challenge to the Policy with its Twenty-One Demands in 1915 (of the then
Republic of
China). Japan also concluded secret treaties with
the Allies which promised Japan the German
territories in China. However, the biggest setback to the Open Door
Policy came in 1931, when Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria,
setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo.
The United States, along with other countries, strongly condemned
the action but did little at the time to stop it.

American public sympathy for the Chinese was aroused by reports
from missionaries, novelists such as Pearl
Buck, and Time Magazine
of Japanese brutality in China, including those surrounding the
"Nanking Massacre." Japanese-American
relations were further soured by the USS
Panay Incident during the bombing of Nanjing. Roosevelt demanded an apology from the
Japanese, which was received, but relations between the two
countries would continue to deteriorate. Edgar Snow's 1937 book Red Star Over China reported that
Mao Zedong's Chinese Communist Party was effective in
carrying out reforms and fighting the Japanese. When open war broke
out in the summer of 1937, however, the United States offered moral
support but took no effective action.

China
formally declared war on Japan in 1941 following the Japanese
Attack on
Pearl Harbor, which brought the Americans into World War II.Massive amounts of
aid were given by the Roosevelt administration to Chiang's
beleaguered government, now headquartered in Chongqing.Madame Chiang
Kaishek, who had been educated in the United States, addressed
the American Congress and toured the country to rally support for
China. Congress amended the discrimination against Chinese
immigration and Roosevelt moved to end the unequal treaties. However, a perception
grew that Chiang's government was unable to effectively resist the
Japanese, or that he preferred to focus more on defeating the
Communists. Americans debated policy. China
Hands such as Joseph Stilwell
argued that it was in American interest to establish communication
with the Communists to prepare for a land based counter-offensive
in invasion of Japan.. The Dixie
Mission, starting in 1943, was the first official American
contact with the Communists. Others, such as Claire Chennault, argued for air power. In
1944, Generalissimo Chiang acceded to Roosevelt's request that an
American general take charge of all forces in the area, but
demanded that Stilwell be recalled. General Albert Wedemeyer replaced Stilwell, and
Patrick Hurley became
Ambassador.

After World War II ended in 1945, the obvious hostility between the
ROC and the CCP exploded into open civil war. General Douglas MacArthur directed the military
forces under Chiang Kai-shek to go to the island of Taiwan to accept
the surrender of Japanese troops, thus beginning the military
occupation of Taiwan. American general George C.Marshall tried to broker a truce between
the ROC and the CCP in 1946, but it quickly came undone, and the
Nationalist cause went steadily downhill
until 1949, when the Communists emerged victorious and drove the
Nationalists from the Chinese
mainland onto Taiwan and other islands. Mao established the
People's
Republic of China (PRC) in mainland China, while the ROC still
remains in Taiwan and other islands.

People's Republic of China

For 30 years after its founding, the United States did not formally
recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC). Instead, it
maintained diplomatic relations with the Republic of China
government on Taiwan, and recognized the ROC as the sole legitimate
government of all
China.

As the
People's Liberation Army
moved south to complete the communist conquest of mainland China in 1949, the American embassy
followed the Republic of China government headed by Chiang Kai-shek
to Taipei later that
year. U.S. consular officials remained in mainland China.
However, the new PRC Government was hostile to this official
American presence, and all U.S. personnel were withdrawn from
mainland China in early 1950.

Korean War

A column of troops and armor of the
1st Marine Division move through communist Chinese lines during
their successful breakout from the Chosin Reservoir in North
Korea.

Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when the U.S. and
PRC's forces fought directly against each other in the Korean War stating on November 1, 1950. In
response to the Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of South Korea,
the United Nations
Security Council was convened and passed the UNSC Resolution
82 condemning the North Korean aggression unanimously.
The
resolution was adopted mainly because the Soviet Union, a veto-wielding
power, had been boycotting proceedings since January, in
protest that the Republic of China (Taiwan) and not the People's
Republic of China held a permanent seat on the council. Once
the American-led UN forces counter-attacked and pushed the invading
North Korean Army back past the North/South border at the 38th parallel north and further into the
north and began to approach the Yalu
river on the Sino-Korea border, the PRC undertook a massive
intervention into the conflict on the side of the communists. The
Chinese struck in the west, along the Chongchon River, and
completely overran several South Korean divisions and successfully
landed a heavy blow to the flank of the remaining UN forces. The
ensuing defeat of the U.S. Eighth Army resulted in the longest
retreat of any American military unit in history. Heavy casualties
were sustained on both sides, before the UN forces were able to
repel the PRC back, near the original division. At the end of March
1951, after the Chinese had moved large amounts of new forces near
the Korean border, U.S. bomb loading pits at Kadena Air
Base in Okinawa were made operational, and bombs were assembled
there "lacking only the essential nuclear cores." On April
5, the Joint Chiefs of Staff released orders for immediate
retaliatory attacks using atomic
weapons against Manchurian bases in the event that large
numbers of new Chinese troops entered into the fights or bombing
attacks originated from those bases. On the same day, Truman gave
his approval for transfer of nine Mark IV nuclear capsules "to the
air force's Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the
weapons" and "the president signed an order to use them against
Chinese and Korean targets." Two years of continued and often
locally bitter fighting ended in an overall stalemate that ensued
while negotiations dragged on, until a cease-fire was agreed to on
the 27 July 1953. The war officially has not ended, and the Korean
issue has had an important role in Sino-American relations ever
since. The entry of the Chinese in the Korean War
caused a shift in US policy toward Chiang Kai-Shek's Nationalist government (confined to the
island of Taiwan) from
marginal support to full blown defense of Taiwan from any
aggression by the PRC.

Vietnam War

The
People's
Republic of China's involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1949,
when the communists took over the country. The Communist Party of China provided
material and technical support to the Vietnamese communists. In the
summer of 1962, Mao Zedong agreed to
supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. After the
launch of "Rolling Thunder", China sent anti-aircraft units and
engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused
by American bombing, rebuild roads and railroads, and to perform
other engineering work. This freed North Vietnamese army units for
combat in the South. Between 1965 and 1970, over 320,000 Chinese
soldiers fought the Americans along side the North Vietnamese Army. The peak came
in 1967, when 170,000 troops served there. China lost 1,446 troops
in the Vietnam War. The US lost 58,159 in combat against the NVA,
Vietcong, and their allied forces including the Chinese.

Relations frozen

The United States continued to work to prevent the PRC from taking
China's seat in the United Nations
and encouraged its allies not to deal with the PRC. The United
States placed an embargo on trading with the PRC, and encouraged
allies to follow it. The PRC
developed nuclear weapons in 1964 and, as later declassified
documents revealed, President Johnson considered preemptive attacks
to halt its nuclear program. Ultimately he decided the measure was
too risky and it was abandoned.

Despite
this official non-recognition, beginning in 1954 and continuing
until 1970, the United States and the People's Republic of China
held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level, first in Geneva and later in
Warsaw.

Rapprochement

Both the PRC and the U.S. had issued feelers to try to improve
relations between the two major powers. This became an especially
important concern for the People's Republic of China after the
Sino-Soviet border
clashes of 1969. The PRC was diplomatically isolated and the
leadership came to believe that improved relations with the United
States would be a useful counterbalance to the Soviet threat.
Zhou Enlai, the PRC premier foreign
minister, was at the forefront of this effort, but he had the
committed backing of Mao.

In the United States, academics such as John K.Fairbank and A.Doak
Barnett pointed to the need to deal realistically with the
Beijing government, while organizations such as National
Committee on United States-China Relations sponsored debate to
promote public awareness. Many saw the specter of Communist China
behind the communist movements in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, but a
growing number concluded that if the PRC would align with the U.S.
it would mean a major redistribution of global power against the
Soviets. Mainland China's market of over a billion consumers
appealed to American business.

Nixon had long been interested in Asia as well and his National Security
AdvisorHenry Kissinger believed
approaching the PRC would be valuable. Domestic political concerns
also entered into Nixon's thinking; the boost from a successful
courting of the PRC could help him greatly in the 1972 American presidential
election. He also worried immensely that one of the Democrats
would preempt him and go to the PRC before he had the
opportunity.

Communications were ongoing between the PRC
and American leadership through the intermediaries of Pakistan and Romania.

Richard Nixon met with Mao Zedong in
1972.

In 1969, the United States thus initiated measures to relax trade
restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact, to which
China responded. However, the rapprochement process was
stalled by U.S. actions in Indochina until on April 6, 1971 the
young American ping pong player, Glenn Cowan, missed his U.S. team bus and was
waved by a Chinese table tennis player onto the bus of the Chinese
team at the 31st World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan.Cowan
spoke with the Chinese players in a friendly fashion, and the
Chinese player, Zhuang Zedong, a
three-time World Men's Singles Champion, presented him with a
silk-screen portrait of the famous Huangshan Mountains. While this had been a purely spontaneous
gesture of friendship between two athletes, the PRC chose to treat
it as an officially sanctioned outreach. Zhuang Zedong spoke about
the incident in a 2007 talk at the USC U.S.-China Institute (
video).According to sources of information from
the PRC, the friendly contact between Zhuang Zedong and Glenn Cowan, as well as the
photograph of the two players in Dacankao, had an impact on Mao's decision
making. He had earlier decided not to invite the U.S. team
along with teams of other western countries that had been invited.
Later known as Ping Pong
Diplomacy, the PRC responded by inviting the American ping pong
team to tour mainland China. The Americans agreed and on April 10, 1971
the athletes became the first Americans to officially visit
China since the communist takeover in 1949.

In July
1971 Henry Kissinger, while on a trip to Pakistan, feigned illness and did not appear in public for a
day. He was actually on a top-secret mission to Beijing to open relations with the government of the
PRC. On July 15, 1971, President Richard
Nixon revealed the mission to the world and that he had been
invited to visit the PRC and that he had accepted.

This announcement caused immediate shock around the world. In the
United States, some of the most hardline anti-communists spoke against the decision,
but public opinion supported the move and Nixon saw the jump in the
polls he had been hoping for. Since Nixon had sterling
anti-communist credentials he was all but immune to being called
"soft on communism."

Within the PRC there was also opposition from left-wing elements.
This effort was allegedly led by Lin Biao,
head of the military. Lin Biao, however, died in a mysterious
plane crash over Mongolia while trying to defect to the Soviet Union,
silencing most internal dissent over the move.

America's
Europeanallies and
Canada were
pleased by the initiative, especially since many of them had
already recognized the PRC. In Asia, the
reaction was far more mixed. Japan was
extremely annoyed that it had not been told of the announcement
until fifteen minutes before it had been made, and feared that the
Americans were abandoning them in favor of the PRC. A short
time later, Japan also recognized the PRC and would commit to
substantial trade with the continental power. South Korea and South Vietnam were
both concerned that peace between the United States and the PRC
could mean an end to support for them against their communist
enemies. Throughout the period of rapprochement both these
states had to be regularly assured that they would not be
abandoned.

The rapprochement with the United States benefited the PRC
immensely and greatly increased its security for the rest of the
Cold War. It has been argued that the
United States, on the other hand, saw fewer benefits than it had
hoped for. The PRC continued to heavily support
North Vietnam in the Vietnam War and
also backed the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. Eventually, however, PRC's suspicion of
Vietnam's motives would lead to a break in Sino-Vietnamese
cooperation and, upon the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979,
the Sino-Vietnamese War.
Both
China and the United States would back combatants in Africa against Soviet and Cuban supported
movements. The economic benefits of normalization were slow
as it would take decades for American products to penetrate the
vast Chinese market. While Nixon's China policy is regarded by many
as the highlight of his presidency, others such as William Bundy, have argued that it provided
very little benefit to the United States.

Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's January
1979 visit to Washington, DC initiated a series of important,
high-level exchanges, which continued until the spring of 1989.
This resulted in many bilateral agreements - especially in the
fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange as
well as trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and
the PRC have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and
cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science
and Technology, the largest bilateral program. ( Click here to see a video of Deng Xiaoping's 1979
visit to the United States.)

On March 1, 1979 the United States and the People's Republic of
China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC.
In 1979 outstanding private claims were resolved and a bilateral
trade agreement was concluded. Vice PresidentWalter Mondale reciprocated Vice Premier
Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to
agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation
links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular
convention.

As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated
in 1980, U.S. dialogue with the PRC broadened to cover a wide range
of issues, including global and regional strategic problems,
political-military questions, including arms control, UN and other multilateral organization
affairs, and international narcotics
matters.

High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for
developing U.S.-PRC relations in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. In
July 1985, President Li Xiannian
traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a PRC head
of state. Vice President Bush visited the PRC in October 1985 and
opened the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu, the U.S.'s fourth consular post in the PRC.
Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between
1985â€“1989, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February
1989.

In the
period before the June 3â€“4, 1989 crackdown, a large and growing number of cultural exchange
activities undertaken at all levels gave the American and Chinese
peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and
educational achievements. Numerous mainland Chinese
professional and official delegations visited the United States
each month. Many of these exchanges continued after the suppression
of the Tiananmen protests.

Tian'anmen to September 11th, 2001

Following the Chinese authorities' suppression of demonstrators in
June 1989, the U.S. and other governments enacted a number of
measures to express their condemnation of the PRC's violation of
human
rights. The U.S. suspended high-level official exchanges with
the PRC and weapons exports from the U.S. to the PRC. The U.S. also
imposed a number of economic
sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G7Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed
political and economic reforms in mainland China, particularly in
the field of human rights.

Tian'anmen disrupted the U.S.-PRC trade relationship, and U.S.
investors' interest in mainland China dropped dramatically. The
U.S. government also responded to the political repression by suspending
certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some
sanctions were legislated; others were executive actions. Examples
include:

Development Bank Lending/International Monetary Fund (IMF) Credits - the United States does not support
development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to the
PRC except for projects that address basic human needs.

Munitions List
Exports - subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued
for the export of any defense article on the U.S. Munitions List.
This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national
interest determination.

Arms Imports - import of defense articles from the PRC was
banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to the PRC.
The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and
reimposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms' Munitions Import List. During this
critical period, J. Stapleton Roy, a career U.S. Foreign Service
Officer, served as ambassador to Beijing. (He spoke at the USC
U.S.-China Institute about the state of U.S.-China relations in
2007 ( text and video).

In 1996,
the PRC conducted military exercises in the Taiwan Strait in an apparent effort to intimidate the Republic of
China (ROC) electorate before the pending presidential
elections, triggering the Third Taiwan Straits
Crisis. The United States dispatched two aircraft
carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the
Taiwan Strait diminished, and relations between the U.S. and the
PRC improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on
numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. President
Jiang Zemin visited the United States in
the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the U.S. by a PRC president
since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides came to a
consensus on implementation of their 1985 agreement on Peaceful
Nuclear Cooperation, as well as a number of other issues (U.Hawaii,
1997). President Clinton visited the PRC in June 1998. He traveled
extensively in mainland China, and had direct interaction with the
Chinese people included live speeches and a radio show, allowing
the President to convey first hand to the Chinese people a sense of
American ideals and values. President Clinton was criticized by
some, however, for failing to pay adequate attention to human
rights abuses in mainland China (Eckholm).

Relations between the U.S. and the PRC were severely strained for a
time by the NATO Bombing of
the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999, accredited to an
intelligence error but which some Chinese believed to be
deliberate. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually
improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached
agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who died
and those who were injured as well as payments for damages to
respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.

In April 2001, a U.S. EP-3
reconnaissance aircraft, flying south of the PRC, collided with a
PRC J-8 fighter jet in what became
known as the Hainan Island
incident. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency
landing on PRC's Hainan
Island despite extensive damage; the PRC aircraft crashed
with the loss of its pilot, Wang Wei. It was widely believed
that the EP-3 recon aircraft was conducting a spying mission on the
Chinese Armed Forces before the collision. Following extensive
negotiations resulting in the "letter of the two sorries", the crew
of the EP-3 was allowed to leave the PRC 11 days later, but the
U.S. aircraft was not permitted to depart for another three months.
Subsequently, the relationship, which had cooled following the
incident, gradually improved.

Bush administration

Sino-American relations changed radically following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The
PRC offered strong public support for the war on terrorism. The PRC voted in
favor of UNSCR 1373,
publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan , and contributed $150 million of bilateral
assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the
Taliban. Shortly after 9/11, the U.S.
and PRC also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue. The third round
of that dialogue was held in Beijing in February 2003.

In the United States, the terrorist attacks greatly changed the
nature of discourse. It was no longer plausible to argue, as the
blue team had earlier asserted, that the
PRC was the primary security threat to the United States, and the
need to focus on the Middle East and the
War on Terror made it a priority for
the United States to avoid potential distractions in East
Asia.

Initially, there were fears among the PRC
leadership that the war on terrorism would lead to an anti-PRC
effort by the U.S., especially as the U.S. began establishing bases
in Central Asian countries like
Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and renewed efforts against Iraq.
Because of the setbacks the U.S. faced in its Iraq campaign, these
fears have largely subsided. Many PRC citizens died in the World Trade
Center rubble, and mainland Chinese companies and
individuals sent expressions of condolences to their U.S.
counterparts. The application of American power in Iraq and
continuing efforts by the United States to cooperate with the PRC
has significantly reduced the popular anti-Americanism that had
been fostered in the mid-1990s.

Taiwan remains a volatile issue, but one that remains under
control. The United States policy toward Taiwan has involved
emphasizing the Four Noes and
One Without. On occasion the United States rebuked ROC
President Chen Shui-bian for provocative pro-independence rhetoric.
However, in 2005, the PRC passed an anti-secession
law which stated that the PRC would be prepared to resort to
"non-peaceful means" if Taiwan declared formal independence. Many
critics of the PRC, such as the Blue team, argue that the PRC was
trying to take advantage of the U.S. war in Iraq to assert its
claims on ROC's territory. In 2008, Taiwan voters elected Ma
Ying-jeou. Ma, representing the Kuomintang, campaigned on a
platform that included rapprochement with mainland China. His
election is seen as having a significant implications for the
future of cross-strait relations.

China's president Hu Jintao visited the United States in April
2006.Clark Randt, U.S. Ambassador to China from 2001 to 2008
examined "The State of U.S.-China Relations in a 2008 lecture at
the USC U.S.-China Institute.

Obama administration

The 2008 U.S. presidential election centered on issues of war and
economic decline, but candidates Barack
Obama and John McCain also spoke
extensively regarding U.S. policy toward China. Both favored
cooperation with China on major issues, but they differed with
regard to trade policy. Obama expressed concern that the value of
China's currency was being deliberately set low to benefit China's
exporters. McCain argued that free trade was crucial and was having
a transformative effect in China. McCain, though, noted that while
China might have shared interests with the U.S., it did not share
American values.

With Barack Obama taking office on
January 20, 2009, there are hopes for increased co-operation and
heightened levels of friendship between the two nations. On
November 8, 2008, Hu Jintao and Barack
Obama had a phone conversation in which the Chinese President
congratulated Obama on his election victory. During the
conversation both parties agreed that the development of US-China
relations is not only in the interest of both nations, but also in
the interests of the world.

Other organizations within China also held positive reactions to
the election of Barack Obama, particularly his commitment to
radical climate change policy.
Greenpeace published an online article
detailing how Obama's victory will spell positive change for
investment in the Green Jobs sector as part of a response to the
financial crisis that gripped the world at the time of Obama's
coming to office. A number of organizations, including the U.S.
Departments of Energy and Commerce, NGOs such as the Council on
Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, and universities
have been working with Chinese counterparts to discuss ways to
address climate change. Both U.S. and Chinese governments have
addressed the economic downturn with massive stimulus initiatives.
The Chinese have expressed concern that "Buy American" components
of the U.S. plan are discriminate against foreign, including
Chinese, producers.

As the two most influential and powerful countries in the world,
there has been increasingly strong suggestions within American
political circles of creating a G-2 (Chimerica)
relationship where the United States and China would work out
solutions to global problems together.

US President Barack Obama visited China on November 15-18,
2009, in discussion of bilateral ties and economic policies.

Important issues

Military spending

PRC's
military budget is often mentioned
as a threat by many, such as the Blue Team in the United States. The PRC's investment in its military is
growing at a fast rate. The United States, along with independent
analysts, remain convinced that PRC conceals the real extent of its
military spending. According to the PRC government, China spent $45
billion on defense in 2007 . In contrast, the United States has a
$623-billion budget for the military in 2008, $123 billion more
than the combined military budgets of all other countries in the
world. Some very broad US estimates, however, maintain that PRC
military is roughly spending between $85 billion and $125 billion.
According to official figures, the PRC spent $123 million on
defense per day in 2007. As a comparison, in 2007, the US spent
$1.7 billion ($1,660 million) per day.

The concerns over the Chinese military budget may be caused by US
worries that the PRC is attempting to challenge the United States
or threaten their neighbors. Concerns have been raised that China
is developing a large naval base near the South China Sea and has
diverted resources from the People's Liberation Army
Ground Force to the Peoples Liberation Army Navy
and to air force and missile development. However, even using the
U.S. Defense Department's estimate of total Chinese defense
spending, China's military spending is only a fourth of U.S.
spending. The true intention of China's military growth still
remains a mystery, and it's unproven that China has any clear
aggressive aims. Evidently however, when looked at as a percentage
of GDP, US military spending is higher than
China's spending.

Andrew Scobell wrote that under President Hu, objective civilian
control and oversight of the PLA appears to be weakly
applied.

On October 27, 2009, American Defense Secretary Robert Gates
praised steps China has taken to increase transparency of defense
spending.

Republic of China (Taiwan)

The
Republic of
China remains a focus of difficulties in the relations
between the United States and the People's
Republic of China. Although the PRC has never governed Taiwan,
the PRC claims Taiwan as a 23rd province and has repeatedly
threatened to take it by force. The United States exports large
amounts of weaponry to the ROC and there is a great deal of
sympathy for Taiwan partly because it, unlike the PRC, has
transformed into a pluralistic, liberal democracy and because of residual
sympathy over the ROC's anti-communism during the Cold War. Any
accession of the ROC to the PRC may also change the balance of
power in that region in both political and military terms; this
potentiality has been of increasing concern to Japan, a traditional
ally of Taiwan and an ally of the ROC since its relocation to
Taipei, as well.

Officially, U.S. policy is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act(text), by the Six
Assurances, and by the Three
Communiques; it has stated a commitment to a one China policy in which it acknowledges
the PRC's position that Taiwan is part of China, but does indicate
whether it agrees with that position. The strength of that
commitment and the relationship between these policies, which may
seem contradictory, changes from administration to
administration.

On Taiwan, there is a general public consensus in favor of the
status quo. However, some supporters of Taiwan independence, such as Lee Teng-hui, have expressed the idea that
Taiwan must act quickly to formally declare independence because
the long term trends favor increased Chinese economic and military
power. Given the PRC's threats to invade if Taiwan formally
declares independence, and the USA's commitments to Taiwan in the
Taiwan Relations Act, such a declaration would put the United
States in a difficult position. In several cases in which the
administration of Chen Shui-bian
appeared to be moving away from the status-quo and toward de
jure independence, the United States has asked for and
received assurances that the ROC remains committed to the "Four Noes and One Without"
policy.

U.S.-China economic relations

The PRC and the U.S. resumed trade relations in 1972 and 1973. U.S.
direct investment in mainland China covers a wide range of
manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant
chains, and petrochemicals. U.S.
companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000
equity joint ventures, contractual
joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in mainland
China. More than 100 U.S.-based multinationals have projects in
mainland China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative U.S.
investment in mainland China is valued at $48 billion. The U.S.
trade deficit with mainland China exceeded $350 billion in 2006 and
was the United States' largest bilateral trade deficit. Total
two-way trade between mainland China and the U.S. has grown from
$33 billion in 1992 to over $230 billion in 2004 (Bunton). Some of
the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with mainland
China include:

The strength of the U.S. economy: a shift of low-end assembly
industries to mainland China from the newly industrialized
countries (NICs) in Asia. Mainland China
has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of
value-added production. Because U.S. trade data attributes the full
value of a product to the final assembler, mainland Chinese value
added is overcounted.

U.S. demand for labor-intensive goods exceeds domestic output.
The PRC has restrictive trade practices in mainland China, which
include a wide array of barriers to foreign goods and services,
often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. These
practices include high tariffs, lack of
transparency, requiring firms to obtain special permission to
import goods, inconsistent application of laws and regulations, and
leveraging technology from foreign firms in return for market
access. Mainland China's accession to World Trade Organization is meant
to help address these barriers.

The undervaluation of the Renminbi
relative to the United States Dollar.

At the September 2002 Joint Economic Committee meeting in
Washington, the United States and People's Republic of China
discussed strengthening cooperation in fighting terrorist finance
and money laundering, prospects for foreign direct investment in
mainland China's financial services, and the regional reliance on
U.S. macroeconomic developments.
Mainland China's continued strong growth has made it an important
regional engine of growth, and the PRC reiterated its commitment to
a strategy of market reforms and global economic openness.

The U.S. and China have also established the high-level U.S.-China
Senior Dialogue to discuss
international political issues and work out resolutions.

In September 2009 a trade dispute emerged between China and the
United States which came after the US imposed tariffs of 35 per
cent on Chinese tyre imports. the Chinese commerce minister accused
the United States of a "grave act of trade protectionism" and China is taking the dispute
to the World Trade
Organisation. The state-run China Daily newspaper reported
strong support among Chinese firms and economists for retaliatory
measures against the US.

Human rights

In 2003 the United States declared that despite some positive
momentum that year and greater signs that the People's Republic of
China was willing to engage with the U.S. and others on human rights there was still serious
backsliding. The PRC government has acknowledged in principle the
importance of protection of human rights in mainland China and has
purported to take steps to bring its human rights practices into
conformity with international norms. Among these steps are
signature of the International
Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in October
1997 (ratified in March 2001) and signing of the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in October 1998 (not yet
ratified). In 2002, the PRC released a significant number of
political and religious prisoners, and agreed to interact with
United Nations experts on torture, arbitrary detention and
religion. However, international human rights groups assert that
there has been virtually no movement on these promises, with more
people being arrested for similar offences subsequently. Such
groups maintain that the PRC still has a long way to go in
instituting the kind of fundamental systemic change that will
protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens in mainland
China. The U.S. State Department publishes an annual report on
human rights around the world. That report includes an evaluation
of China's human rights record. In 2008, the State Department still
found much to criticize about China's government's human rights
record, but dropped China from its list of states with the greatest
human rights violations. The 2008 report was issued on March 11,
2008. ( report).

To counter this, China has published a White Paper
annually since 1998 detailing the human rights abuses by the United
States, as well as its own progress in this area. The 2001 report
criticizing U.S. human rights can be seen here. The 2008 report was issued two days after the
U.S. State Department issued its report ( document).Since October 19, 2005 the PRC government
has also published its White Paper on its own democratic progress.
In November 2007, the Chinese government published a White Paper on
the role of the Communist and other parties in China. ( Click here for video on the human rights issue.)